The late CEO Steve Jobs and in his inner circle began dreaming up their iLife series of applications for the Mac back in 1998. The first app was iMovie which actually debuted in 1999. In 2003 the first iteration of the iLife Series debuted. In 2007 Apple began to pursue a lifestyle companion application but it was never released. Instead, Apple chose to work on the Nike + iPod application to bolster the iPod. The lifestyle companion system was designed to coordinate a user's fitness, nutrition, and medical experiences. Considering that the Nike + iPod hasn't really advanced much over recent years, you have to wonder if Apple will consider releasing this application in the future now that the Patent Office has granted them a patent for it. To close out our report, we cover Apple's dual design patent wins for their sixth generation iPod nano.
Speculation from a Taipei based analyst this morning states that Apple is likely to cut its orders for their iPad in an attempt to avoid an oversupply of the tablet computer and adjust its panel supplier mix. "The growth momentum of worldwide tablet PCs has actually become weaker this year, partially due to market saturation," said Charles Chou, a senior industry analyst at the government-sponsored Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute. The analyst also stated that Apple is facing market share erosion by some 'white-label' vendors. Yet in July, Tim Cook reminded analysts that they had just resolved an iPad trademark issue in China and that sales for the last quarter didn't benefit from the new iPad in the June quarter in Mainland China. So in context, the imaginary argument that analysts are seeing "market erosion" isn't justified. Yet the speculation continued in a report out of Korea that the gross demand for display panels for the new iPad may decrease from Q3. So are these analysts seeing something that we're not?
Apple has come under renewed fire in China for not abiding by the country's consumer protection laws, after a local court accepted the first lawsuit filed by users against its after-sales services. The Lixia District People's Court in Jinan, capital of East China's Shandong province, confirmed it had received a petition from an iPod user claiming the US tech giant violated his consumer rights by refusing to update the warranty after repairing two devices he had bought. The court will hear the case on Sept 14, Liu Ke, the court's public relations officer, told China Daily on Friday. The Vice-Chairman of China's consumers' association stated that "In certain countries such as Japan and Australia, Apple adopted unique rules to bring the company in line with local laws and regulations. Apparently they have double standards."
A Class Action has been filed against Apple for Defective MacBook Logic Boards. The case was filed by Omar Rosales in the Southern District of Texas. The Class action lists eight counts against Apple with three of them being Fraud under Texas Common Law, Breach of Implied Warranty of Fitness for a Particular Purpose and Breach of Implied Warranty of Merchantability. The filing lists a great number of complaints and several of them are listed in our report.
On August 2, 2012, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a series of patent applications from Apple on the topics of SIM cards, radio transparent materials for portable devices, video editing and many other utility patents.
On August 2, 2012, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a mind boggling patent application from Apple that reveals features that they're considering for their next generation Smart Cover. This is obviously a master patent that could play out in several stages and/or in different Smart Cover configurations depending on the user's priorities. Apple's future Smart Cover could include interactive Multi-Touch panels or a secondary display and/or other features that include the use of solar panels, inductive charging, smart pen input and believe it or not, much more.
